FROM THE BLINDSIDE: ALL ANY team can hope for in the Heineken Cup is to get to this stage of the competition and still have qualification in their own hands. Ulster owe being top of their pool to the two bonus-point wins over Aironi, but, no matter how it happened, this is where they are.
They have two matches in eight days now against absolute powerhouses of the competition in Leicester and Clermont and they’re going to have to beat one of them and probably get at least a losing bonus point from the other if they want to make it to the knock-out stages for the second year in a row.
Not many people genuinely expect them to do it, but I think they have a great chance. Leicester must travel to Ravenhill on Friday night, to the scene of the biggest beating they’ve ever suffered in the competition.
It’s very rare that anyone ever teaches Leicester a lesson in the Heineken Cup, but they got one in Ravenhill on this weekend eight years ago. Ulster tore into them that night and ended up beating them 33-0.
Leicester got their revenge a week later with an unmerciful hiding back at Welford Road, but that Ravenhill defeat is still there on their record as the heaviest defeat they’ve ever had in Europe.
This will be Leicester’s first visit back to Belfast since then.
There aren’t a lot of survivors on either side – Louis Deacon and Paddy Wallace are the only two still playing who were involved that night – but you can be sure that in and around Leicester there will be plenty of people who remember that whole experience.
You don’t forget a big night at Ravenhill in a hurry.
It’s become a cliché over the years that Ravenhill is such a tough place to go, but that’s only because it’s true. The crowd, the atmosphere and even just the history of the place piles pressure on every visiting team.
More than most places you go, there’s an electricity there between the team and the crowd.
You always felt that Ulster players took adrenaline from the stands on to the pitch and, the louder the crowd got, the harder the players hit. They were a couple of inches taller for playing in front of their own people.
Anytime I played there, it was very obvious how confident the Ulster players were as opposed to how they would be away from home. They would walk on to the pitch with a certainty about them that they just didn’t seem to have if you played them in Limerick or Cork. There’s no doubt that they feed off the idea of Ravenhill as a place other teams don’t like to go and their crowd does the same.
Put all that together and you have an advantage that is a constant, one that doesn’t change no matter who is on the team in any particular season.
The big reason they’ve done consistently well over the past couple of seasons – as opposed to the odd big win here and there like the Leicester one in 2004 – is the success they’ve had in recruiting overseas players.
They had a good base of home- grown players to begin with, but, as I was saying in last week’s column, that will only bring you so far in the Heineken Cup. You need outside experience and class to go along with the good young talent you’re able to produce yourself.
Ulster definitely got that in the three South Africans – Johann Muller, Pedrie Wannenburg and Ruan Pienaar. These guys are world-class players who bring the experience of playing in big competitions and being successful in them. No matter how much promise a young Ulster player has, it’s impossible for him to match what someone like Muller can bring in that regard.
John Afoa has been a great signing as well, slotting right in where BJ Botha left off when he went to Munster.
Brian McLaughlin is a coach with a forensic mind and a brilliant knowledge of all the small things that go into making a difference on the pitch. When Eddie O’Sullivan brought him in as a skills coach with Ireland, he used to teach us so much about the finer points of the game.
His expertise at the breakdown was phenomenal and he taught a whole generation of Ireland rugby players things that we had never seen before when it came to that area. We learned smarter ways to clear out rucks, better techniques for removing opposition players from in and around the breakdown. I was always impressed with his knowledge and passion for the game.
He is part of a group of guys up there who know what Ulster rugby means and who understand the passion that people up there have for it. Himself, David Humphreys, Johnny Bell and Neil Doak have all seen what’s possible in Ulster and they know that if they can come through these next two games with five points there’s a great chance they’ll make the quarter-final.
It would be massive for them to do it two years in a row. They saw last year the difference it makes to your whole outlook and your whole attitude to the rest of the season if you finish the sixth pool game with a quarter-final spot.
Everyone has something to look forward to in April, the place feels more optimistic. With the best will in the world – and this happened to us in Munster last year – trying to rouse yourself for the Rabo Pro12 will be so much harder if you know your Heineken Cup season is done.
I remember going up to Ravenhill there to play a Magners League game in around March, 2007. That year’s Six Nations had just finished, but Munster hadn’t got the bulk of our frontline players back yet, whereas Ulster had more or less a full team out.
The difference was that we had guys who were looking to push on and maybe force a place in the Heineken Cup squad whereas a few of their players were perhaps going through the motions because they had no big game coming up in April.
We came back from 21-3 down at half-time to beat them 24-21 in the end that night. I always remind any of the Ulster fellas of that game because Brian Carney scored a try from a crossfield kick by me. I never managed a crossfield kick in my life, but this one came off and Carney scored his first ever try in rugby union.
They were surely in bad shape if they were letting things like that happen. You can be guaranteed it wouldn’t have happened if they’d been getting ready for a Heineken Cup quarter-final a couple of weeks later.
Ulster can make it through the next two weekends and be in that quarter-final in April. They’re a much more inventive team now than they were a couple of years ago when they relied too much on using Stephen Ferris as a human wrecking-ball. Ferris is still a huge part of their game plan, but the likes of Wannenburg and Chris Henry take some of the load off his shoulders as well.
Behind the pack, they move the ball quickly and they get the likes of Darren Cave and Andrew Trimble involved quite a bit.
They’ve been a bit unlucky in that possibly their shrewdest signing, Jared Payne, only managed a game and a half before he tore his Achilles back in October. I was talking to a few people about him in New Zealand during the World Cup and he comes very highly recommended from the Auckland Blues. If he was fit and healthy, they’d have another option in their backline and would be very dangerous.
As it is, I still think they have enough about them to beat Leicester on Friday night. For a team that was once so dominant in the competition, it’s 10 years since Leicester have actually won it. I’ve watched them over the past few years and while they made the final in 2009 and 2007, there have been other years when they haven’t come out of their pool.
For a team with such a proud tradition and with so many good, hard players to call on, I find that pretty shocking.
Leicester will always be a tough game, but they haven’t kicked on over the past few seasons and for a team to go to Ravenhill and get a result they have to be right at the top of their game. Clermont couldn’t do it back in November, Bath and Biarritz both lost there last season. The list of good teams that have turned up at Ravenhill expecting to come away with a win before getting taken down is endless. Stade Français, Harlequins, even Toulouse.
Ulster are playing well and have their confidence up. They know this is their only real chance and that going to Clermont the following week needing a win is likely to end in failure. Leicester will test them in the scrum and will be very physical, but I can just see the home advantage tipping it in Ulster’s favour.
Munster and Leinster should both get the job done as well.
Castres are coming to Thomond Park on Saturday and Munster will just have to put in a professional afternoon to take care of them. If they keep mistakes to a minimum and ignore the fact that everyone expects them to win, they’ll do what they have to.
Denis Leamy’s injury has left them looking a little thin on the ground for backrowers – I’m obviously considering my position and will be contacting Paul Scholes for advice in the coming days!
As for Leinster, the days of them having trouble with Scottish teams are in the past now and they should come away from Glasgow with a win on Sunday.
It won’t be a cakewalk, but they’re playing too well and with too much confidence these days to go there and lose.
Even though Glasgow have improved a lot, they’re still not up to Leinster’s level.
Away from the Irish teams – it hardly needs saying that Connacht are in for a rough afternoon in Toulouse – the other big clash of the weekend is between Saracens and Biarritz in Pool 5 on Sunday.
Whoever wins it will probably go on and win the group and although Biarritz have struggled in the Top 14, they will go to Vicarage Road on a serious mission. They have to win because Saracens finish out the pool in Treviso while they face the Ospreys at home. So Sunday is do-or-die for both teams.
Just as the Heineken Cup is supposed to be.
“It’s very rare that anyone ever teaches Leicester a lesson in the Heineken Cup but they got one in Ravenhill on this weekend eight years ago. Ulster tore into them that night and ended up beating them 33-0.
